


Falling

by wickedlupin



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: F/F, talessecretsanta2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 05:25:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13139976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedlupin/pseuds/wickedlupin
Summary: Sheena suddenly found herself falling, and not just for the white-haired beauty in her thoughts.  She wasreallyfalling, into a cold, icy trap.





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

> written for @goddessofbarrels on tumblr for Tales Secret Santa 2017!

Everything about Raine was impressive to Sheena. Her knowledge, her maturity, and to her astonishment, even her looks. It seemed lately Sheena couldn’t keep her eyes off of her. Since making her pact with Volt, she had felt a new sort of connection to the half-elf, and in the scarce moments of quiet between boundless conversation with the others, it was all she could focus on. It was in one of these rare moments, while the party made their way out of the Temple of Ice, that Sheena suddenly found herself falling, and not just for the white-haired beauty in her thoughts. She was _really_ falling, into a cold, icy trap. She dropped to the ground with a thud, unfortunately facedown. That was just her luck. Struggling to regain her breath, Sheena painfully rolled over onto her back. Ouch.

* * *

Although Raine had been walking behind Sheena when the thin ice covering the trap had broken beneath her, she hadn’t been quick enough to keep her from falling into the hole. Colette was the first one to reach the edge of the pit, looking down into the darkness. “Sheena!” she yelled, at the same time Raine heard the clumsy ninja hit the bottom. Worry filled her heart as much as it filled Colette’s voice. “Sheena, are you okay?!”

The others joined Colette around the pit. It seemed to take Sheena a bit to gather enough breath to yell back up to them. “I’m fine,” came her faint reply from the bottom.

Zelos laughed. “Aren’t you supposed to be _aware_ of traps like this?” he goaded. There was no audible reaction from the bottom, which concerned Raine more.

“Where are you?” Lloyd called down to her. “Can we get down there?”

“It looks like I’m back in the Temple somewhere.”

“Stay where you are, we’ll come down to find you!”

With that, Lloyd stood up, having decided for everyone. He led the party back into the Temple from which they had come, taking the first path available to them.

“Wait, Lloyd!” Genis yelled, stopping him. “That path leads upward. Sheena fell, so we need to find a path that leads _down.”_

“Oh. Right, I knew that,” Lloyd said, trying to hide the flush of embarrassment on his cheeks.

“There are two paths that slope down,” Presea pointed out, looking to their right, where the untraveled paths lay.

“Then we should split up to try to find her faster,” Raine suggested.

Zelos grabbed Colette’s arm, grinning with false innocence. “I’m going with this cutie!”

Lloyd shot him a glare. “I’m going with Colette, too!”

Raine rolled her eyes, then made eye contact with Regal. If those three were to be in a group together, they would clearly need someone to keep them on track. Regal understood her gaze, and volunteered himself to join the first group.

They took their separate paths, with Genis thrilled to be in Presea’s group. As they traveled the frigid trail downward, Raine’s thoughts were solely on Sheena, injured on the cold ground somewhere. She hadn’t realized how much her feelings for Sheena had grown—even though she had once been an enemy, Raine now cared for her just as much as she did for Genis, Lloyd, and Colette. But while her feelings for the other three were almost maternal, her feelings for Sheena were… different.

Raine was pulled from her thoughts as the company of three reached another fork. Genis looked up at his sister for direction. “Which one should we take first?”

Raine contemplated the two paths. “The two of you take the left path, I’ll take the right.”

“By yourself?” Genis asked in astonishment, “But we don’t know what could be down there!”

“I’ll be fine,” Raine insisted, “We need to find Sheena quickly. The monsters in this temple aren’t anything I can’t handle.”

Genis and Presea finally agreed to take the trail to the left, and Raine started down the remaining one alone. It descended further and further, and ultimately flattened out. A ways ahead, Raine could see a patch of light shining down from the high ceiling. That had to be where Sheena had fallen from. She rushed forward, and sure enough, Sheena was sprawled out on her back beside the patch of sunlight.

Raine knelt down beside her. “How badly are you injured?” she asked, skipping any unnecessary greetings and introductions.

Sheena found herself smiling despite her pain. That was just like Raine, cutting straight to the point. “I think it’s mostly bruising in my chest…” There were scrapes on her face and arms as well from the fall, but those were nothing compared to the impact that had knocked the breath out of her.

“Let me take a look at it,” Raine said, and Sheena blushed, quickly sitting up and wincing from the movement.

“Take a look at my _chest?”_

Raine felt a bit of heat rise in her cheeks as well. She hadn’t previously considered Sheena’s chest in this manner. She pushed aside this new revelation, determined to focus on healing for now. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just me, the others split off to look down other paths for you.”

_But it’s_ because _it’s you,_ Sheena thought, frowning and averting her gaze. She fought her overwhelming embarrassment, reminding herself that her chest was already mostly exposed. She didn’t need to expose much more… but Raine would still be examining her closely, and that’s what made her heart pound. She convinced her fingers to untie her belt, letting her gi fall open a bit more.

Raine leaned over her and set to work healing her to the best of her abilities. “I can’t heal all of the internal bruising… but it seems it’s nothing too serious.” Sheena nodded, but with the half-elf so close to her, she couldn’t tell if the healing artes had actually made it any easier for her to breathe.

Now that she could ensure Sheena was not in any danger, Raine’s thoughts were free to wander away from healing artes, and she became aware that she was leaning over a very vulnerable Sheena. She bit her lower lip and moved away from the ninja so that she could properly redress herself.

Sheena retied her belt and finally took a deep breath. “Thank you for healing me, once again, Raine. I’m sorry I’m always causing trouble for you.”

A fond smile graced Raine’s lips. “Maybe you should start paying attention to where you’re going, then. What’s always so pressing on your mind to distract you that much?”

Sheena’s cheeks lit up once more. Maybe it wasn’t always the case when she met with clumsy bad luck, but in this case her thoughts had definitely been on Raine. She looked at the half-elf and was met with that gentle smile. When exactly had things become like this?

“I thought I was your enemy,” Sheena blurted out.

“You haven’t been my enemy for a while now,” Raine countered, “You’ve proven to me that I can trust you, and I care about you.”

Sheena smiled, too, becoming a bit more relaxed with the warm conversation. She inched closer to Raine so that they were sitting close next to each other. It was icy cold, after all, they needed to keep warm.

“You don’t seem to place trust in others very easily,” Sheena observed quietly.

“I just don’t trust others _blindly._ So now that I’ve gotten to know you, and seen you work to protect all of us, I can see that you’re trustworthy.”

“I think there’s still a lot we don’t know about each other, though,” Sheena said, looking sideways at Raine. Their arms brushed against each other a bit as Raine also turned her head to look Sheena in the eye.

“Maybe we should change that.”

Raine closed the inch or two left between them and kissed Sheena lightly. As she pulled her face away again, she was surprised to find Sheena move with her to kiss her again. The second kiss lasted longer, but only just. They were both nervous, inexperienced, embarrassed. But the kiss was warm, and awakened emotions within Raine that more than confirmed the nature of her growing feelings for Sheena.

As their lips parted once more, Sheena fumbled for words for a moment, before tentatively settling with “You mean that?”

Raine wasn’t sure if she was referring to what she had said earlier, or to this kiss. But seeing as she had sincerely meant both, she nodded, chuckling.

Sheena took Raine’s hand and swiftly kissed her cheek before she could let her nerves tell her not to. But suddenly, from the direction Raine had come, she could hear footsteps.

“SHEENA?”

Zelos’s loud, obnoxious voice echoed off the walls, and Sheena sighed. Raine didn’t let go of Sheena’s hand as they stood up to rejoin the rest of the party.


End file.
